Well Optimization with Ambyint Game Changer

Disruptors are everywhere. Much like the 1960’s we are aggravated by the status quo. This mediocrity is demanding new thinking, new freedoms, and new action. The technology innovators of today are restless and looking to disturb, disassemble and reinvent the systems that are not the best, most efficient, or sustainable for the future.

Using technology as their toolkit, innovators are harnessing the digital revolution rattling the very foundations of how we work, play, communicate, collaborate, transact and evaluate the world around us.

‘Disruption’ isn’t however inherently valuable and not all disruption is long-sighted. While ‘pain points’ exist in numerous areas of all industries, it can be argued that only a small percentage of these are issues which are significant to more than a niche circle. In other words, they are not global game changers.

So innovators are challenged to answer these questions:
a. What is disruptive technology?
b. How will the future be impacted as a result of that disruption?
c. What technology will be disruptive in the energy sector?
d. How will we change the course of history?

As a consequence of rapid shifts in the global energy markets, the oil and gas industry has seen the incredible strain in a very short period of time. Uncertainty, as a result of political maneuvering, led to tumbling energy prices and a subsequent tsunami which relentlessly rolled through the oil patch. This left organizations bruised and searching, like never before, for solutions to help navigate what have rapidly become severe pain points.

Rising costs, falling margins, aging incumbent technologies, and the dwindling proportion of reserves offering ‘easy extraction’ present the perfect storm we’re experiencing today; a squall which comes with the potential to prolong the pain for oil producers long into the future.

When in doubt, ask what technology can do

Efficiency is the new differentiator and this has quickly become the case for those in the oil and gas production sector. Maximization of existing resources, minimization of downtime, streamlining of costs and pre-empting issues before they even occur, has become a major aspiration for proactive oil producers.

Using technology to optimize oil production is not new. My previous company, Pumpwell, pioneered tech-based well optimization which combined well-mounted control mechanisms with proprietary algorithms and the expertise of specialist engineers. Constant analysis of a well’s performance and the remote implementation of micro adjustments to the pump stroke were able to create far greater levels of efficiency and production.

Though, the problem was clear. Although every well can benefit from optimization, the current solution was only cost effective for higher-producing wells and it wasn’t future-proof.

Disrupting our own industry

In early 2014, “Myself and our engineering team got our first glimpse into the power and potential of the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT). With IIoT principles, we saw that by connecting devices with sensors and making them ‘chatty’, we could mine, collate and analyze immense amounts of rich, insightful data and, in doing so, use that gathered intelligence to develop solutions with the potential to change the industry business model altogether”, said Calgary-based visionary and CEO Nav Dhunay.

Effectively, we saw the potential to pioneer the disruption of our own industry.

Ambient Intelligence

Our objective was never to make minor adjustments to existing solutions, but to understand where solutions would be 10 years from now and start building them today.

Over the past year, myself and a trusted team of optimization engineers and software developers set about sourcing and combining the latest innovations in the emerging tech sectors of lightweight sensors, wireless communications and predictive data analytics. Our explicit intent was to create a platform which was able to optimize every global well and use the data it collects to do it better every following day.

Through the Pumpwell optimization platform, we had already amassed a significant amount of data which had been used to develop our own algorithms. These algorithms had given us the ability to receive data from the pumpjack and implement real-time, intelligence-based adjustments to the pump stroke to improve extraction and decrease wear on the equipment.

The Ambyint Intelligence Platform was officially launched on August 1st, 2015. This out-of-box solution can be self-installed, by operators, on any oil producing well (Sucker Rod, ESP or PCP) and managed remotely with a mobile application.

Gathered information from discreet, well-mounted sensors is wirelessly transmitted from the source and analyzed by the proprietary Ambyint Analytical Engine. In real-time, motor-mounted control mechanisms carry out autonomous, micro adjustments to the pump stroke in order to maintain maximum efficiency and production. Sensors also continuously monitor for indications of component wear in order to preempt equipment failure and negate or, at the very least, minimize downtime.

In order to make the solution future-proof and scalable, a significant amount of time was spent analyzing cost as it was understood that this could in no way be a prohibiting factor for even the smallest, or lowest producing well. To become a technology ubiquitous within the oil patch, we believed the solution had to be about the cost of a new smartphone – and through leveraging agile, scalable technologies, and building our own proprietary hardware, we were able to achieve that benchmark.

The Ambyint complete end-to-end integrated optimization solution is under $1,000 (+ $50/month/well).

The Future is Big (Data)

Enabling machines within the oil patch to become ‘smarter’ and transmit rich, insightful data, presents a major opportunity for future innovation in resource extraction. Through the analysis and mining of this ‘big data’, the potential exists to not only consistently refine well performance, but to create fully automated solutions with the power to operate, predict, alert and constantly improve.

The future is here.

To learn more visit www.ambyint.com

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